I’m not very good at street photography. I’m too timid and hesitate and then the moment is gone. The Fuji X100 is a street photographer’s dream, and yet I walk down the street carrying it in my hand never taking a shot for fear someone will take offense.
I spent a week in Wellington recently visiting a friend and we spent a fair amount of time walking around with our cameras. I found his presence reassuring - all 6’ and 120kg of it - and started to feel a little more brave. Interestingly, what triggered the change was swapping cameras with him for a short stretch of waterfront stroll. Now armed with a 7D and big intimidating 24mm f1.4L, I found myself seeing the world differently.
Looking through the viewfinder isolated me from the scene in a way that made me feel invisible. The fast auto focus and even faster shutter speeds allowed for quick frame and fire, before I was noticed. I found myself becoming confident, even aggressive, quickly snapping off images of anything I liked without worrying who would see me.
After handing the tank back, the feeling stayed with me. Perhaps not so much the aggression but my new found confidence held and I was able to shoot people without being afraid.
The Wellington trip was quite a good one for photography. While I was there someone set a car on fire in the middle of a pedestrian mall in a very dangerous form of protest. Dave and I saw the smoke rising high into the sky and then dashed to his apartment so he could get a telephoto lens. The X100 not having this luxury, I was ready to go.
35mm is a nice focal length for photo journalism. It requires getting close to the subject, which draws the viewer into the scene and engages them. It feels like standing there. Admittedly, shots at 300mm from the end of the street are better than nothing if the police cordon won’t let you get any closer.
I felt I had taken some great shots, and was very excited about my first attempts at both street photography and photojournalism with the X100. Small, quiet, unobtrusive - it’s great if you don’t want to be noticed. The high lasted right up until someone mentioned to me that the NZHerald had picked up one of my photographs on their story about the blaze. I clicked through to see which they had chosen.
Oh. The one I had taken with my iPhone while not being able to see the screen to compose, just so I could get the shot on Twitter faster.
Oh well. At least I’ve learned a valuable lesson - be brave and just shoot, and that the NZ media have bad taste in where they steal their images from.
